Minneapolis Cycle World Show

We've always wanted to go give the Minneapolis show a try but because of the threat of bad weather and fear of pulling our trailer through snow and ice, we've not went. This year the conditions were right and after we tore down in Cleveland and checked the weather, we decided to go on up and give her a try.

Instead of camping and freezing to death in 8 degree temps, we stayed in a downtown hotel close by the convention center. If you were savy enough, you could walk the skywalk to and from the convention center. Of course, I wasn't savy enough and for most of the time there, was lost in the maze like skywalk. They seriously need some SIGNAGE in that place...Then we finally figured it out and they closed the dang thing on the weekend when we needed it most. We just gave up and got cabs after that. By the way, we stayed in the downtown Raddison which was very nice if anyone ever needs accomodations in Minneapolis.

Having never been we weren't sure we had a good product mix. It generally takes doing a show to figure out what goes good and what doesn't. We ended up selling a little bit of everything and not much of any one thing.

The crowds were slow on Friday and Sunday but really really busy on Saturday. We might have sold more had we had more help but who knows. We took a smaller booth this time and because of that, we didn't have our regular retail floor set. I think that hurt us a bit but again, not ever having done this show we're not sure.

Advanstar did a good job marketing and selling the show. All season, they really have got the "butts in the seats". It's just been one of them seasons where you can almost bank on half of what you did last year. Sales ain't bad unless you know you did double that amount last year lol.

We got one more Cycle World Show to go and it's in Chicago. We'll be going back up there in the freezing cold and snow. It's always a great show though so we're looking forward to it.